Lucas Oil Stadium

Construction cost: $720 million (plus $270 million for the convention center expansion).

Colts contribution: $100 million (minus $48 million the city gave the team to terminate an existing lease).

Public funding cost breakdown: 45 percent from a 1 percent increase in the Marion County food and beverage tax; 22 percent from a 3 percent increase in the Marion County hotel tax; 14 percent by diverting revenue from the existing professional sports development area to the project; 6 percent from a 1 percent increase in the ticket tax at sporting venues; 6 percent from a 1 percent restaurant tax in six neighboring counties; 5 percent from a 2 percent increase in the Marion County car rental tax; and 1 percent from revenue generated by selling Colts license plates.

Naming rights: $121.5 million from Lucas Oil Products over 20 years.

Debt issuances: The state issued bonds five times between October 2005 and June 2009 with terms of 27 to 30 years. The first issuance was the largest, $400 million. If tax revenues fall short to pay back the bonds, the state would cover debt payments. If excess revenue comes in, the bonds would be paid down early.

Sanders' itinerary

Wednesday: Kansas City, Mo.

Thursday: Indianapolis

Why this city?: The sprawling, downtown Wholesale District is an example of what San Diego officials say is possible here.

What’s there?: It is home to hotels, hot spots, a basketball arena, a convention center and a football stadium.

What’s the draw?: In 2008, the 63,000-seat Lucas Oil Stadium, where the Colts play football, was built along with a convention center expansion.

What did that cost?: The stadium cost $720 million, and the entire project approached $1 billion. The Colts contributed $100 million (minus $48 million the city gave the team to terminate an existing lease.) The rest came from taxes on food and beverages, hotels, tickets, restaurants and car rentals.

Friday: Denver

Sanders on the Chargers

April 2006: "We can't go out to taxpayers and say, 'We can afford a new stadium but we can't resurface your streets.'"

August 2006: "We've been very clear that we don't have the money. I don't want to spend taxpayer money."

November 2009: "I think that after four years, we certainly have to give them a signal on what we intend to do or how we want to do it or what we can do, and then start working together to see if we can achieve a solution."

October 2010: "We've always said there could be no general fund money used for that (the stadium.) Redevelopment dollars, as long as it's used in a development area, that's legitimate."

April 2011: If I were (Chagers owner) Dean (Spanos), I'd be the most frustrated person on Earth. And that's the reason I've told him we'll try to work with him, and we'll put the weight of my office behind it as long as I can."

August 2011: "I can't speak for the Chargers, but I think what they're going to want to see is what our intentions are coming off this trip, coming together and starting to create a plan, and I think they'll have a very good idea about that."

Sanders' tour from start to end

On Thursday, San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders made Indianapolis the middle stop of a three-city U.S. tour of sports venues and their surrounding entertainment districts.

Before arriving, Sanders said it might be the best example of how San Diego could build the Chargers an East Village stadium and transform the area.

A closer look at Indianapolis, where construction and operation of a new stadium was tied to a convention center expansion, shows the approach has parallels and pitfalls for San Diego, where the Chargers envision something similar.

The Colts and the Chargers began making inquiries about new stadiums in 2002.

While the Chargers are no closer than they were back then, the Colts have played in the 63,000-seat Lucas Oil Stadium since 2008, and the renovated convention center opened in January.

The new facilities nearly doubled the size of the Colts’ previous stadium and the convention facility. The stadium cost $720 million, and the convention center expansion was $275 million, or about $1 billion combined.

The Colts contributed $100 million (minus $48 million the city gave the team to end its existing stadium lease.) Most of the rest was raised without a vote of the public through taxes on food and beverages, hotels, tickets, restaurants and car rentals.

While Marion County — essentially Indianapolis — raised most of the revenue, 6 percent of the project was paid through a 1 percent restaurant tax in six neighboring counties.

Chris Gahl, spokesman for the Indianapolis Convention & Visitors Association, said Thursday the argument used to raise those taxes has been borne out: The project has been a boon for not only downtown but the region.

The Indiana Convention Center has booked 69 citywide conventions that wouldn’t have come to a smaller facility, with an estimated economic benefit of $1.3 billion, Gahl said. In February, the city will host its first Super Bowl.

The stadium has 12 meeting rooms and 183,000 square feet of exhibit space to complement 566,000 square feet of contiguous convention center exhibit space. The buildings are two football fields apart from one another and connected by an enclosed, climate-controlled walkway.

The Indiana Convention Center’s name alone is an indication the venue is a big draw for the region and the state, not just for city residents rolling downtown.

Keeping it that way is a concern. Just last month, Nordstrom Inc. closed its anchor store at the Circle Center shopping mall downtown.

These days, residents have different views of the downtown area.

Indianapolis lawyer and political scientist Paul Ogden said the redevelopment of the city’s Wholesale District, which includes the convention center, football stadium and 100 restaurants and nightspots, has eaten up too much public money.

“I think it started well,” Ogden said. “But we got to the point where the people who were investing in downtown didn’t invest money unless it was some type of public-private partnership. It becomes a public-private partnership, it gets to the point where the public is taking all the risk and the private is making all the money, and that’s sort of the way it’s devolved in downtown Indianapolis.”

Pat Andrews, a neighborhood advocate who lost an Indianapolis City Council race this year, said the politicians who negotiated the deal failed to account for increased operating costs that came with a larger stadium.

She said that problem was made worse by the way the Colts’ lease was negotiated.

“It gives pretty much all the money to (owner) Mr. (Jim) Irsay and the Colts, and all the expenses to the city. This is something you may wish to avoid in San Diego,” Andrews said.

Yet die-hard Colts fan Randy Collins said the public investment was smart.

It locked in national college basketball tournaments in the area for decades, boosted convention business and retained a National Football League team.

“If you take away the NFL, it would have a huge impact on Indianapolis, especially me,” said Collins, 53.

Collins owns the Blue Crew Sports Grill, a 15-minute drive from the stadium, and is president of the Indy Blue Crew, a group that gathers for every home game in a 500-space parking lot it leases close to Lucas Oil Stadium.

“The stadium is pretty awesome looking,” Collins said. “It’s huge. It towers over everything, and it’s tied to the convention center, which is pretty neat. … They get a lot of tourists. They really promote it.”

Talking by phone, Sanders said he was impressed with the stadium, especially at how it was integrated with the convention center.

“It’s beautiful, but it’s certainly not as lavish or as large as Dallas or New York,” he said. “I think it’d be an excellent model for what we’d like to do in San Diego.”

The financing model, which involved multiple governments, might also be something San Diego can consider, he said.

“I don’t think this can strictly just be a San Diego thing. I think it’ll partly be a county plan,” Sanders said. “I think there are some creative ways we can come together.”